Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Please Don't Flip For Me

My sister came over and we spent a really fun weekend applying ice packs to her recently removed wisdom tooth. Sometimes we have house guests who drive us crazy with their incessant demands and then Peter and I huddle in our bedroom whispering about how annoying they are. My sister was perfectly behaved. Peter was introduced to the joy of having a younger sibling around. Which means that we didn't have to get up off of our fat-asses to get a bottle of Aquafina from the fridge. Jenny, you go get that.

There was a Nor-easter blowing across the country so I actually woke up before noon - I woke up at 8am(!!!!!) to make her a nice breakfast and see her on her way before the heavy rains set in.

Two hours later, I get a phone call from her, and this is what she said:

"I got into an accident. The car flipped over twice and it's totally trashed, but I'm fine."

Of course, being raised the way I was, into thinking that ANYTHING happening to my siblings is somehow MY FAULT, my brain careened into all the different things I could have done differently (I was raised by people who told me that I was the only one who could cure my developmentally disabled sister).

Even though Jenny got into the worst car accident in the history of our family, I am extremely grateful that she's fine. That she escaped unharmed except for some smiley-face shaped bruises. Especially in the light of what happened in Virginia, and all those people who died during the storm, and all the flooding that has been going on around here, we have a lot to be thankful for.

Later I calmed down and realized that you can't control it all. Sometimes, you just have to take the car keys away. I've been trying to convince my parents not to let Jenny drive until she's thirty, because my heart? It just can't take this.